Horse Show Ribbons

Where are my horse show friends? Equus Villa? Five O'clock?

Sarah has been riding since she was four and showing since she was nine. She doesn't show all the time but does compete in several shows each year. She has accumulated quite a collection of ribbons over the past few years but I have always been at a loss as to what to do with them.

Recently, while working on her room it came to me out of the blue. She has a couple of walls in her room that are 'dead walls'. They're in areas where you really can't put furniture and artwork feels awkward. Odd walls and bags of show ribbons, hmmmmm....

I decided to hang the ribbons on the dead walls. I bought some black gimp at the local fabric store and stopped by my favorite upholsterer to pick up some tacks.
I measured the ribbons and the wall. I found that most hanging ribbons are about 14" long so I made the lengths of gimp 14" apart. I measured so that a tack would be at each end at at every foot between.

Then the show ribbons just hang on the gimp with the little metal clips on the back of the ribbon...

And the finished product! The only problem is, I'm going to have to go straight onto the other dead wall since this one didn't hold them all. Not a bad problem to have!

Quick Redo

A couple of weeks ago I had some time to do a few things around the house, so I decided to tackle the rest of Sarah's room. I'll post some more photos later but for a start... Sarah's old dresser. With her new, larger room, I decided to keep her dresser to use it as a night stand. It couldn't stay the old distressed cream of her toddler days, it wouldn't work with her new style.

Here's the piece before (actually during transition).

Since her room is black, white and turquoise these great knobs from Anthro were perfect.
And the dresser/nightstand now. It has an aged, rubbed black finish and those cute knobs. I think if you click on the photo you may be able to see the finish better when it's enlarged.

More Before and After - The Basement

So it's time for a little more before and after. I've been working away in the basement for the past few days, trying to remove the rest of the white left in the main room. Now that things are dark, the white is very stark, jarring.

This is part of the basement when we bought the house. 95% of the house was painted bright yellow, including all the ceilings. The tile surround on the fireplace was a cream ceramic and the mantel white. The carpet was old, off white, basic builder grade.

This is the fireplace now. The photos aren't the greatest, it's difficult to get a good picture in the basement, it isn't very bright down there.

We replaced the tile with Ostrich Feather slate, the walls are Restoration Hardware's Cappuccino, the trim is Ben Moore Black Fox. The carpet is loop pile sculpted. I have forgotten the name of it; it's almost the exact same color as the walls.

I painted the mantel in Cappuccino oil and then glazed it with some of the Black Fox just to make it all tie into the rest of the room. I wasn't looking to make a statement with the fireplace.

Then, onto the big built in shelves opposite the fireplace. These are the only built in shelves we left in the house, all the others were removed prior to refinishing the floors.

Before: Yellow walls and ceiling, white woodwork...

Then, after walls and trim were painted and carpet replaced, the white really stood out.
It took me a while before I knew exactly what I wanted to do with this piece and the bar. They're big and imposing but I didn't want them to conflict with the other finishes in the room. Black would be too harsh and the red of the sofa and the pool table felt was the third color. I didn't want to just paint it the Black Fox.

I found while looking through magazines I kept stopping at adds for Lorts new line of, I believe, mahogany furniture that has silver accents. That ended up being the inspiration for the built in and will eventually be the bar as well as soon as I get time.

This is part of the Lorts line...

The basement is very dark and I knew if I wood grained the back of the built in, it would look like a big black hole. Again, I didn't want to introduce another color but at the same time I needed to get light in the unit. I decided to silver leaf the back and do a tonal glaze over it to mellow it out.

This is a closeup of the silver leaf.

And this is the end result, quite a departure from the white. The backs are silver leafed and the rest is wood grained in a rich mahogany. The whole thing is made to look more like an antique by finishing it off with Liberon wax.

Here's a couple more shots:

Not quite the Lorts piece, but inspired by anyway. It's difficult to see in the photo, but I also put a little silver trim on some of the molding and on the door faces.

New Curtains for the bedroom

After a long wait, we now have new curtains for the bedroom.

Just to remind, the below photo was the bedroom when we bought the house. Yellow, yellow everywhere and old off white carpet.

While there is still plenty to do in the bedroom, lovely linen graces the windows. No more blinds!

At first the plan was to just shirr them on the rods. They looked lovely, however, they didn't move at all unless you climbed up onto a ladder and pulled them across. Not very practical. So rings had to be sewn on, now they move great.

The curtains before the rings. I love the way the light comes through in the mornings. Often I don't even open them the room is so bright.
They look great with the Serwin Williams Chatroom on the walls and Porter's Jute on the ceiling.
There are some other things to take care of. While they worked in the old house, the bedside lamps are too small for the scale of this room. I also need to find something for over the bed and I'm keeping an eye out for a gorgeous Belgian chandelier to replace the ceiling fan with.

I wish we could have a big plush carpet in this room, it would ground everything so well. However, as long as we have the lovely Max there will be no carpet.

Special thanks to Aunt Sue, seamstress extraordinaire. She made the gorgeous curtains for me, they're perfect. I can't wait to hang the sunroom curtains, hopefully the rods will be ready soon.

More Before and After

Here are some more before and after of the new house.

This is the smallest of the upstairs bedrooms which has become a secondary makeshift office. The yellow is gone and new carpet installed.

Before:

And After.
This was the guest room before. Bright blue walls and ceiling, old off white short pile carpet.
And now, a soft parchment color wash is on the walls, a creamy ceiling and new mocha frise carpet. The drapes are being lengthened, so the rods will be remounted almost all the way to the ceiling. We went ahead and hung them lower for the time being since this is on the east side of the house and a very bright room in the mornings. The bath for this room was all blue like the bedroom but that has been redone in Ben Moore's Sea Glass.

The powder room before. Heavy craft paper glued to the wall, painted red and then aged with a dark brown glaze over the top. This was very hard to remove. This is a small room under the stairs without a window. It was very dark and very red. Also the vanity was dark wood with flowers painted on it.
The powder room now. Cream venetian plaster, troweled over a sea blue painted base with a earth brown wax over the top. I'm not completely satisfied with this room it's a little busy. I'll probably redo the wax in the future. The vanity still needs it's new knobs installed here.The back stairs off the bonus room. You don't see a lot of difference in the photos.

Before: Yellow paint, walls and ceiling! Maple finished stairs and oak banisters.
After:
Mocha on the walls really warmed the room up. The stairs, like the other hardwood was refinished to a dark walnut. I refinished the banisters with a faux finish product and then hand waxed them with Liberon.
Sarah's bathroom before:
A pink lovers dream. Too bad Sarah likes blue.
Sarah's bathroom after.
A soft turquoise on the walls with a graphic black and white morrocan trellis on the ceiling. The black white and turquois reflect the colors of the bedroom, which isn't finished yet.The ceiling.

More of the front office.

Before, this is the only shot I have. Yellow walls, yellow ceiling, same as all the rest of the house.

After.

The walls are Ralph Lauren Suede, I believe Mesa Verde. The ceiling is Porter's Jute.

Another shot of the office. The wall hanging there was an old ceiling medallion I retrieved on a job at Dolly Parton's sister's old house. I filled in the hole and faux finished it with a rusted iron finish. It looks like it weighs 100 lbs.

Cool Bird

Meet my latest pet!

Mike gave him to me for Christmas this year, I was so suprised. I saw him recently at The Loft at Henpeck Market and thought he was just the coolest. I didn't even know Mike knew about him.

I'm thinking of naming him Sterling, what do you think?

Yes, he's made entirely of cutlery. He stands about 2.5 feet tall.

Updates On The New House

Here are a few before and after photos of the progress so far. There are still many things to do but we're moving along.

This is the basement before. Yellow walls, white trim, old carpet and ceramic tile.

The basement now.

New carpet, which is gorgeous - you can't really see in the photos but it has a geometric pattern to it. Fresh paint on the walls and ceilings, Restoration Hardware's Cappucino. The trim is all Ben Moore's Black Fox. Black slate tile has replaced the ceramic around the fire place and on the floor of the bar (not shown yet) The fireplace, bar and bookcases will be faux finished or painted at a later date.

The kitchen before.
The flat, dark gray walls looked very much like chalkboard paint. It showed everything, even hand prints when you touched the walls.
The kitchen today.
A sandstone faux finish in a natural tone helped the other elements of the room work together.
The eating area of the kitchen.

The front office/living room before.

I'll take more photos of the interior of the room later but this is after the columns were removed and french doors were installed.

All the hardwood floors were refinished from a light maple to a darker brown walnut.

One of the biggest transformations so far - the dining room before...

The dining room now.

The columns, pedestals waintcotting and ceiling molding were removed. The floors refinished. All the walls were floated three times and then a plaster faux finish applied. The chandelier will change at a later date.

The faux finish is a metallic plaster that looks and feels like raw silk.

The shelves in the basement to be faux finished in the future.